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After all, in places such as Bengal and Sind, which were ruled by Brahminical dynasties but had Buddhist majorities, Buddhists are said to have welcomed the Muslims as saviours who had freed them from the tyranny of ‘upper’ caste rule. This explains why most of the ‘lower-caste’ people in Eastern Bengal and Sind embraced Islam. Few, if any, among the ‘upper’ castes of these regions did the same.

Veer Savarkar describes the sharp contrasts between Hinduism and Brahamanism. He was highly critical of Buddhism.

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, devoted a part of his influential book “Hindutva” to Buddhism and attacks Buddhism’s “lack of martial involvement in society, and its lack of nationalist identification with India”.

Under pressure, he makes a few genuflections before the Buddha, but then reverts to his negative judgment. “We fear that the one telling factor that contributed to the fall of Buddhism more than any other has escaped that detailed attention of scholars which it deserves.”

Savarkar explains that “Philosophical differences” and the “inanitation and demoralization of the BuddhisticChurch”, with Viharas attracting “a loose, lazy and promiscuous crowd of men who lived on others”, are insufficient. V.D. Savarkar: Hindutva, p.18.

“Thus it was political and national necessity that was at once the cause and the effect of the decline of Buddhism. Buddhism had its centre of gravity nowhere. So it was an imperative need to restore at least the national centre of gravity that India had lost in attempting to get identified with Buddhism.” Savarkar. V.D. Savarkar: Hindutva, p.28

They would have been inconsequential “had not the political consequences of the Buddhistic expansion been so disastrous to the national virility and even the national existence of our race”

Savarkar states that the Greco-Bactrian and Kushana invaders adopted Buddhism, supported by native Buddhists. He questions the loyalty and collaboration of native Buddhists.Six Glorious Epochs of Indian History, Savarkar gives other instances of Buddhist treason.

Savarkar imagines what the message they brought to Qasim sounded like: “We have nothing to do with Dahir and his VedicHinducult. Our religiousfaith differs very widely from theirs. (…) Never suspect for a moment that we shall even enlist ourselves in King Dahir’s armed forces or help him in any way. So we pray that the Buddhists should not be subjected to any indignities or troubles at your hands.” Savarkar also imagines this response. “which amounted to complete surrender” was that he “gave them temporary assurance of safety”. V. D. Savarkar: Six Glorious Epochs, p. 134.

Savarkar asks and answers the question: “But what were the Buddhists doing in this national catastrophe? At the news of the fall of King Dahir and the victory of the Muslims, these Buddhists began to ring bells in their vihars to greet the Muslim conquerors, and prayed in congregations for the prosperity of the Muslim rulers!” V.D. Savarkar: Six Glorious Epochs, p. 136. Vihâra = Buddhist monastery. Notably those by C.V. Vaidya, S.N. Dhar, A.L. Srivastava, Henry M. Elliot, M. Titus, and the original testimonies, the Chach-Nâmah and Al Baladhuri’s Kitâb Futûh-ul-Baldân, both in English translation in H.M. Eliot & John Dowson: History of India as Told by Its Own Historians, vol.1.

S.T. Godbole translates how Al-Baladhuri mentions that “two Samanis, or priests” (apparently Shramanas, Buddhistmonks) went all the way to Qasim’s employer Hajjaj “to treat for peace”

“His [Qasim’sl work was greatly facilitated by the treachery of certain Buddhistpriests and renegade chiefs who deserted their sovereign and joined the invader" R.C. Majumdar, H.C. Raychoudhary, Kalikinkar Datta: An Advanced History of India, p. 172.

"Budhiman comes to Muhammad Kasim, and receives a promise of protection"?Quoted in Elliot & Dowson: History of India as Told by Its Own Historians, vol.1, p.157.

These authors believe that "one thousand Brahmans" who came to surrender are described as having "shaven heads and beards" and being "dressed in yellow clothes", the typical look of Shramanas.

Romila Thapar has said: "In an often horrible way, religiousforms of expression like Buddhism and Jainism have been persecuted and even exterminated [by Hindus]. (…) The trauma for the Brahmins was that, in the time of the Moghuls, they were counted among ‘the rest’, i.e. the non-Muslims. Bad for them was also that Islam was more able to have a dialogue with the inheritors of Shramanism.” Interview with Romila Thapar by Marc Colpaert in Wereldwijd, March 1986. There is no information about this “dialogue” in Romila Thapar: A History of India, vol.1, which covers the period when these religions encountered each other.

Savarkar hates the Buddhists for their non-violence and he glrifies Hindu militarism. “Buddhism has conquests to claim but they belong to a world far removed from this our matter-of-fact world, where feet of clay do not stand long and steel could be easily sharpened, and trishna/thirst is too powerful and real to be quenched by painted streams that flow perennially in heaven. These must have been the considerations that must have driven themselves home to the hearts of our patriots and thinkers when the Huns and Shakas poured like volcanic torrents and burnt all that thrived. (…) So the leaders of thought and action of our race had to rekindle their Sacrificial Fire to oppose the sacrilegious one and to re-open the mines of Vedic fields for steel, to get it sharpened on the altar of Kali, ‘the Terrible’, so that Mahakal, the ‘spirit of the time’, be appeased. Nor were their anticipations belied. The success of the renovated Hindu arms was undisputed and indisputable. Vikramaditya who drove the foreigners from the Indian soil and Lalitaditya who caught and chastised them in their very dens from Tartary to Mongolia were but complements of each other. Valour had accomplished what formulas had failed to do.” V.D. Savarkar: Hindutva, p.20-22.

“that the conflict against Brahmin supremacy had, in fact, started before Buddhist period, between Vasishta Muni, a Brahmin, and Viswamitra, a non-Brahmin. ‘The dispute was about the learning of ‘Vedas’, the right to conduct religiousceremony, to receive gifts, and to perform coronation of King. Vasishta Muni insisted that these were the exclusive privileges of Brahmins, while Viswamitra was opposed to such exclusive rights. This dispute lasted for long period, and even Kings joined in it (Writings and Speeches of Dr. Ambedkar, vol. 7, p. 148-155. It was won by Brahmins.’: Prof. Bahauddin Quoting Dr. B. R. Ambedkar.

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